Nampula polling stations open, many of them late – AIM report

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Nampula polling stations open, many of them late – AIM report

6:00 CAT | 24 Jan 2018

Photo: Twitter @ntatendana

As Wednesday morning wore on, polling stations in the northern Mozambican city of Nampula opened for the mayoral by-election, but many of them considerably later than the scheduled time of 07.00.

Even in the central part of the city, which should have been the easiest for the electoral bodies to reach, some stations had not opened by 08.30.

According to the “Bulletin on the Mozambican Political Process”, edited by the anti-corruption NGO, the Centre for Public Integrity (CIP), the main reason for the late opening was the delay in bringing the voting material to the polling stations, but there were also reports of electoral registers inadvertently swapped between polling stations.

Given the months of preparations for this by-election, such shoddy behaviour by the Nampula branch of the Electoral Administration Technical Secretariat is quite inexcusable.

Another excuse given was the weather. Although it did rain torrentially in Nampula on Tuesday, by the evening the rain had stopped, and there should have been no serious difficulties in transporting the voting materials to all 401 polling stations.

Por alguns instantes, eleitores afectos a mesa 03000105 revoltaram-se pelo facto do Presidente da referida mesa ter encerrado temporariamente o processo a pedido de três delegados de candidatura. Entretanto, o processo já retornou a normalidade #Nampula pic.twitter.com/eubwX6kOFM

— Ntatenda (@ntatendana) January 24, 2018

After casting his ballot at one of the polling stations that did open more or less on time, the candidate of the ruling Frelimo Party, Amisse Cololo, told reporters he was confident that he would win.

“I and my wife have now voted”, he said. “I’m calm and sure of victory. I appeal to my fellow citizens to come out and vote, and then return to their homes to await the results”.

Of course, the two main opposition candidates, Paulo Vahanle, of the rebel movement Renamo, and Carlos Saide, of the Mozambique Democratic Movement, also declare their certainty that they will be the next mayor.

One alarming phenomenon is an apparently low turnout. Although some enthusiastic voters told reporters they had been queuing up since 04.00, at many polling stations the queues were short.

The CIP Bulletin noted that at polling station 03000105, at the Nampula Industrial and Commercial Institute, there was nobody at all in the queue at 09.32. A member of the polling station staff said that by then only 10 people had voted, out of the 556 people registered to vote at that station.

At the Ceramica Primary School, which contains 13 polling stations, by 08.20 there was nobody in the queues at five of the stations.

The low turnout may seem puzzling given the enthusiasm on the streets of Nampula during the election campaign. But it is likely that many of those who campaigned for their parties were not registered voters.

For there has been no voter registration in Nampula since the 2014 general elections, and so the many thousands of Nampula residents who attained the voting age of 18 since 2014 have been disenfranchised.

Com pouco menos de uma hora para o término da votação, grande parte das assembleias de voto encontram-se vazias. #Nampula #NampulaDecide pic.twitter.com/haFSXmRzT5

— Ntatenda (@ntatendana) January 24, 2018

A further problem is that many people have lost their voter card. They can use their identity card, passport, driver’s licence or any other form of ID that bears a photo, but whereas the voter card carries the code which shows them which polling station to go to, the other documents do not.

These voters know which polling area to go to (the same one where they registered in 2014) but some areas contain a dozen or more stations, and they have to spend time checking the electoral registers in each station to see which one contains their name.

At the last Nampula municipal election, in 2013, turnout was 26 per cent.

Um caso que irá dar de falar é o Caso #Malimusse. Nesta assembleia de voto houve uma confusão. Vários eleitores quando iam votar, depararam-se com o facto de que já tinham votado. Outros votaram sem que seus nomes constassem dos cadernos #Nampula

— Tomás Queface (@tomqueface) January 24, 2018

Source: AIM